Posted in News

Out Now: RSAT for Windows 7 Service Pack 1

If you edit Group Policy on you local computer you will be glad to hear that Microsoft has just released the Remove Server Admin Tools update for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 which has an updated version of GPMC. This resolves the "The update does not apply to your system” error message if you had re-installed Windows 7 and loaded…

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Posted in News

Installing IE9 on Windows 7 Service Pack 1 doesn’t require a reboot

Update: Now that I have installed the final version of IE9 on 6 computers 2 of them needed to rebook so it would seem that it may or may not require a reboot. This seems to be dependent on what application you are running at the time. Therefore it would still be prudent to plan for a reboot but not…

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Posted in hotfix

Updated: Group Policy Hotfix’s in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 1

Microsoft today  announced (after what seems to be a very long time) they have RTM’d Windows 7 / Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 and it will be released to the public on February 22nd. Update: Service Pack 1 is now available for download for TechNet and MSDN subscribers. Previously I had listed the hotfixes in the beta version…

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Posted in KB Focus

New Group Policy Hotfix’s

Microsoft have recently released a couple of hotfixes relating to Group Policy. As you are probably aware there are a number of Group Policy related hotfixes in Windows 7 / Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 which is about to be released (on Feb 22nd 2011) however these two particular patches are listed as being required even for Service…

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Posted in Best Practice Tutorials

How to show or hide Control Panel items in Windows 7 using Group Policy

One of the common lock down’s that administrator apply to Remote Desktop Services Servers (a.k.a. Terminal Services (a.k.a. Citrix)) is to remove all but the essential control panel items. Previous to Windows 7 you had to specify the .cpl (e.g. timedate.cpl) file name of the control panel item you wanted to show or hide however this has changed in Windows…

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Posted in Best Practice Tutorials

How to enable a disabled Local Administrator account offline in Windows 7 (even when using BitLocker)

  Back in the days of Windows XP IT administrators could disable the local administrator account on domain joined computers but still be able to use the account if they rebooted the computer into safe mode (see How to access the computer after you disable the administrator account ). To log on to Windows by using the disabled local Administrator…

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Posted in Best Practice Tutorials

How to configure Roaming Profiles and Folder Redirection

Read Me First: If you are using Folder Redirection with Windows 7 in your organisation then I would definitely recommend that you check my other blog post about a pretty nasty Folder redirection bug and how to fix it at  Disappearing Folder Redirection Issues with Windows 7 Update: I have new blog post that describes the new “Primary Computer” feature in…

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Posted in News

Group Policy Hotfix Round Up

In the July 29 to August 12th Hot-fix release for Windows 6/7 there have been a number of Group Policy related hotfixes released. As far as I can tell none of these hotfixes are listed as being in Windows 7 Service Pack 1 that is currently in beta (see The complete list of Group Policy Hotfix’s in Windows 7/2008 R2…

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